South Africa: Cape Town Murder Stats - Has the Army Made a Difference?

There are seven murders a day on the Cape Flats

In April 2026, about 200 soldiers were deployed to the Cape Flats as part of Operation Prosper, which is expected to last until 31 March 2027.

646 people were murdered on the Cape Flats between April and June this year -- 95 fewer than the same period last year. That amounts to an average of seven people a day, down from eight last year.

It is hard to know at this point whether the army has contributed to this small decline. It is so small that it may merely be a random fluctuation. Murders in the quarter preceding the army's arrival (Jan-March 2026) were already lower than the same period in 2024/25. So if we are in the midst of a sustained decline, it may have started before the army was deployed.

The number of murders remains extremely high, higher than in the same quarter from 2018/19 through 2023/24. After the army was deployed in 2019, there followed three consecutive quarters of declining murder rates in the Cape Flats. Again, the drop was not substantial enough to be sure of the army's contribution to reduced murders.

Murders dropped quite substantially during the covid epidemic.

There could be other causal factors to the recent drop, such as the increased deployment of the provincial and local government's Law Enforcement Advancement Programme (LEAP).

"We said from the very beginning that the deployment of the SANDF, in the supporting role, is not a panacea and is not a long-term solution," acting police minister Firoz Cachalia told Parliament last month.

Chart produced by The Outlier in partnership with GroundUp